Lifting European Union beef ban may aid transatlantic deal

Don’t expect a lot of Irish or French steak to land on American dinner tables anytime soon now that the U.S. has lifted its ban on imports of European Union beef, which it imposed 15 years ago because of fears over “mad cow” disease.

With the European Union barely a net exporter of beef as it is, last week’s final rule overhauling U.S. import regulations for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, as the disease is scientifically known, may have served more as a quid pro quo aimed at helping the United States and European Union broker the massive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership deal.

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“It’s important in terms of setting a precedent; if the U.S. opens up, it will probably help to open to other markets as well, but it’s not earth-shattering in terms of trade,” said Ralph Ichter, a former agriculture counselor at the French Embassy who now represents French agriculture interests in Washington.

In fact, the Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service reports that foreign-born cattle constituted on average only about 8 percent of monthly U.S. beef products over the past 13 years, and most of that has come from Canada and Mexico.

But the final rule could grease the wheels of the trade talks, which will enter the second round of negotiations next week in Brussels, to the benefit of U.S. agriculture interests. For example, U.S. chicken producers are eager to gain EU approval of peroxyacetic acid and other antimicrobial washes, which are an essential to the operation of U.S. poultry processing plants.

U.S. cattle ranchers, for their part, would like to see greater access to foreign markets, at least as much as Canadian ranchers received under the trade deal that the European Union and Canada announced last month. That agreement gave Canada’s cattle farmers an additional duty-free export quota of 50,000 metric tons of beef each year.

“With these import regulations set, I am confident we will be able to expand our market access and meet international demand for high-quality U.S. beef,” Scott George, president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, said in a news release.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) sees the rule as a boon for U.S. beef exports, which are limited in certain markets. Japan and South Korea, for example, restrict U.S. beef imports from animals older than 30 months because of the perception that older animals have a greater risk of carrying BSE.

“I applaud USDA’s actions to make sure that America’s beef producers have access to new export markets,” Stabenow said in a news release. “This effort is crucial to breaking down other countries’ unfounded trade barriers, and reopening trade markets that are closed to U.S. beef.”

EU ambassador to the U.S. João Vale de Almeida said the final BSE rule is a “good omen” for the bilateral trade talks and “solid proof [the] EU and U.S. can resolve differences.”

Ichter said the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, “can claim victory. The main issue is the commission wants to point out to its domestic constituency, ‘See, this thing works; they’re not stonewalling.’”